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A ghost appearing usually means a gathering of power has been left wandering due to a few overlapping circumstances. Whether it is physical or a kind of data, it is common knowledge to summoners that the soul exists. And if some kind of conditions are thrown off, an error can occur and the soul of the dead will lose its destination. It will be stuck in the world like rainwater gathering in a drain clogged with leaves.2 Ghost extermination is one of the most basic requests for summoners. Unless the ghost is a very powerful vengeful spirit, it is almost never necessary to fight the ghost with a Material. In most cases, one only needs to throw an Incense Grenade and set up an Artificial Sacred Ground. The ghost is a paranormal being, so the Artificial Sacred Ground will give them a boost and allow them to wield greater power than normal. However, they can not actually use that power. Once the conditions are set to summon a Material, the “clog” will be forcibly removed and the ghost will vanish like the rainwater left in the drain pipe. It is unknown whether it's simply a phenomenon being destroyed or if the soul really does go to heaven, but it does resolve the paranormal phenomenon. Very little is known about the phenomenon of ghosts, even by top tier summoners Freedom is a group of around 500 “individual” summoners with no hierarchy restricting them.1 Freedom's summoners are those who praise freedom above all else and hate any kind of restriction. Normally that type of people will meet some level of resistance from society. But some of those people will force through it with their own strength, and those are the people who had naturally gathered together and built a loose framework around themselves.2 Despite their low numbers and loose organization, the power of their individual summoners allows them to act as the third major power.3 Due to the way the organization works, members have no obligation to help each other, so summoners likely can't expect to get help from a colleague unless they know each other personally.4 The Material Freedom has made a contract with is the Unexplored-class Material the Spirit of the Fluttering “Yellow” Gills that Rules the Heavens, which stands at the peak of high cost sounds and manages Freedom's Awards.5 Freedom's summoners work as freelance summoners, selecting jobs on their own.1 Since none of their summoners usually care about any other summoners in their group, they don't keep an official registry of their members.6 While Government and Illegal consider each other enemies and are in a contant standoff, they both work with and hire summoners from Freedom, who's considered to have extraterritoriality. Of course, Freedom does not just obey them. If either one went too far, they are prepared to retaliate with an intense war.7 Freedom usually ends up acting to mediate the issue between them as a third party. Government is a large group funded by an alliance of sixty governments, religions, and giant corporations. Basically, it’s an occult version of a UN army.2 Their primary purpose is to appropriately manage the invisible asset that is the summoning ceremony, and they keep track of any dangerous groups.3 One of the sources of Government's funding is Quad Motors, which gives Government access to military Repliglass units.3 Government’s infantry is not made of normal soldiers, they are all new summoners who have been late to acquire a vessel. A lot of them die before being promoted, but those that have fought through a true battlefield without a vessel gain quite a bit of power, as those who know fear and have conquered it are strong.4According to Kyousuke Shiroyama, Government loves human wave attacks that use quantity over quality and employ both summoner-vessel teams supported by Repliglass Pilot Soldiers ---------------------------------------------------------- Guard of Honor is a new faction in the summoning business. Initially thought to be a new group of Illegal growing in strength by Government,2 it was later revealed that Guard of Honor is a hybrid faction made from a collection of new summoners supported by experienced summoners from all three main factions, united in their devotion for the White Queen.3 As their name indicates, they see themselves as the faithful servants and priests of the Queen.4 They hold a deep jealousy towards Kyousuke Shiroyama due to the White Queen's interest in him.2Guard of Honor's main goal is to recreate the Control method developed by Kyousuke Shiroyama to remain eternally with the White Queen and hold audiences with her without relying on something as uncertain as the legend of Award 1000.5 By binding a one-on-one contract with the White Queen, they will become her first chosen servants and joyfully serve her as her priests or guard of honor.4 The members of the group are so obsessed with serving the White Queen that they do not care for what chaos her continued presence in the world may cause,3 or even if the White Queen hurts them or kills them, viewing it as an honor.4 According to Aika, most of their summoners don't appear in any of the lists of summoners because they didn’t start as summoners or vessels. They originally were normal people that got involved in the summoning business as witnesses to its battles and had their memories and cognizance automatically rewritten without even knowing it. Not even the experts know exactly how those things are overwritten in their minds, so it raises the possibility that some of them are implanted with something that attracts them to the Material like Stockholm syndrome. They weren’t necessarily directly caught in the middle of one of the White Queen’s battles, but in the end, it doesn't matter if they didn't. Even if they started pursuing some minor Material, their self-study would ultimately lead them to the White Queen at the very top. Sooner or later and for better or for worse, anyone who comes into contact with the summoning ceremony is sucked in toward the White Queen to a certain extent. So no matter where they started, they would all be ensnared by her after crossing a certain line.3 Even if most of their members are new in the summoning business, they still have an abnormal amount of skilled members. As unique as the summoning ceremony is, it’s still a type of skill, so Aika suggested they may have used drugs or suggestion for an abnormal teaching method, or maybe having their memories and cognizance automatically rewritten upon witnessing a Material was enough to plant the inspiration leading to superb genius as if frying their brain. Whatever it is, they have a way to artificially create skilled summoners. They also built up real fighting experience by observing summoner battles and waiting for a battle to grow too chaotic to tell who was attacking or guiding the battle in that direction. Then they would summon their own Material and butt in to earn the experience points they needed. And of course, they would kill all of the people they used as a stepping stone to keep the organization a secret.3 Guard of Honor has at least 450 summoners. They have three 900+ Award instructors coming from the major factions that trained the new summoners, and by the time they started the final phases of their operation in Toy Dream 35, they had risen at least 70 of them to the higher 800s. This gives them a strong fighting force that would allow them to wage war against aces from the three major factions. Guard of Honor is an organization with no hierarchy or center whatsoever,26 which can be seen by the fact that all of their summoners abandon their previous nicknames and instead use the shared nickname Uniquely Selfles --------------According to Lu Niang-Lan, Illegal wants to get rid of the current flawed system by ruling the city, the country, and the world with their own inviolable rules and bonds of blood. She claims they just want to supply a better life for everyone. Government may see them as the evil crime lords who want to tear down their stronghold, but destroying the entire world would work against their goal. Her claim is supported by the fact that Lu gave this explanation during a mission with the goal of destroying a strategic outline full of simulation data for defeating an enemy nation that a certain nation had developed deep underground, as the simulations were too well done and would likely lead to a war if it made it to people on the top, leading to Illegal deciding to erase that possibility.4 Illegal seems to employ assassins like Lu Niang-Lan for their jobs, though they also commit non-violent crimes such as manipulating stock prices or dabbling in land speculation. Due to this, the organization is very skilled at spreading rumors online.5 who believed he could bring about peace if he killed everyone standing in its way. After their leader committed suicide over a failure to kill one of his targets, a shadow was cast over his ideals and the organization decided to take the other way and completely reject death instead of accepting it in a major plan to create a deathless world. If they succeeded, they succeeded. And if they failed, it proved that their leader was right all along The goal of the organization is very simple: to search out and eliminate people who deserve to die. The intelligence members of the organization identify their targets, which will be eliminated by their assassins. Their basis for who “deserves to die” surpasses the interests of a specific religion, nation, corporation, or other such framework and it cannot be changed by external pressure. It may be similar to the concept of “changing history” seen in discussions of time travel. It is entirely unknown what sort of “ideal world” they are attempting to create by killing the people on their list. So they are less of a criminal organization seeking dirty money and more of an ideological group whose actions are based on twisted dogma. The organization was powerful enough that Government considered it impossible to eliminate. Pandemonium is a large amphibious mobile fortress made out of Repliglass. Its pitch black center is shaped like a gigantic coffin and a total of ten thick propulsion tentacles extend from the bottom like oil pipelines. Altogether, the Pandemonium is shaped like a giant squid lying on its side. Pandemonium is the world’s largest standalone piece of Repliglass, not counting a city’s large-scale management infrastructure,2 being more than 800 meters across, even more if the tentacles are included. The corridors inside are needlessly wide and the rooms are all large, a necessity of the large-scale system it supports. Pandemonium is divided in various levels. At the center one can find the processor core and the 353 vessels it uses as "cogs".3 The Pandemoniums uses a Repliglass heart core to supply the energy of the fortress.4 The most notable feature of Pandemonium is that it functions as a giant Box, a summoning support system that allows people to use the power of Materials in ways the regular summoning ceremony cannot. It can be thought of as a supercomputer that can be accessed to perform various kinds of calculations. It's said that more than 90% of the new systems displayed at D.R.O.K. are supported with a link to Pandemonium, which is the biggest product of the international trade show and a joint project between the three major powers, at least officially. The truth is that Pandemonium was created due to the influence of the Round Table's Deltaston family to secure the position.2 According to Kyousuke, the inside of the Pandemonium is likely full of tricks to distort one’s spiritual cognizance. An experienced summoner or vessel might be fine, but regular people and summoners with less than 100 Awardswill have their autonomic nerves fried if they stay inside for too long.5 The Pandemonium's surface was subjected to a special treatment, creating a unique pattern. Just like magic circles guide magic power according to a set of rules, the pattern redirects the paranormal burden and dilutes it into the planet, also grounding the fortress against curses. This allows it to survive supernatural attacks like its own Projection Summon Bombing.3 The Pandemonium uses a net of microwave anti-personnel radars and infrared searchlights to detect any intruder within a five-kilometer radius.2 Its entrance uses multiple biometrics such as fingerprint, pulse, and iris.6 Projection Summon BombingEdit A laser range-finding is fired from a stealth bomber to instantly calculate out the contours of the target terrain, projection mapping is then used to optically project the large-scale magic circle on the three-dimensional surface without the slightest flaw, and an Unexplored-class is summoned and positioned in the center of that region using the Pandemonium's Box. It uses a traditional magic circle, but it intentionally omits the central vessel, causing the exposed power to directly fill the outside world as a powerful explosion with a light so bright the Unexplored-class used can’t even be seen. The explosion of power is not just an instantaneous thing, it will expand and continue indefinitely until an exorcism circle is added on to limit its range. The demonstrations used 2000 meters in the interest of safety, but according to the presenter, the scale could be increased tenfold or it could be projected from a satellite rather than a bomber. The Unexplored-class used by the Pandemonium for this weapon is the Lady of Unexplored Lightning, creating a purple explosion.2 Attach Saint ProjectEdit The Attach Saint Project does not send the Material itself into the vessel but instead injects it inside the Repliglass equipped by the summoner using the Pandemonium. Only Divine-class weapons can be summoned, but this allows the summoner to borrow the power of the gods while thoroughly eliminating the will of the gods and the role of a vessel.2 Holy Key WomenEdit The Holy Key Women is a project run by Illegal consisting of extremely high precision vessels that are also almost entirely risk-free of natural possessions by vengeful and evil spirits. By inserting an authorization key in the keyhole they have on their back, a predetermined Divine-class Material will be automatically summoned. It performs the Summoning ceremony by unleashing special power with the locking and unlocking action of a complex lock. According to Mika Himekawa, the system is based on witchcraft, more specifically, it is an application of a technique that stores the power of wind in the knots of a rope and performs magic by untying those knots. The vessel’s mental state is instantly tuned by having them recall wings, a tail, or some other organ that humans should not have. That allows the instant summoning of the Divine-class corresponding to the internal structure of the lock. However, the Holy Key Women are unable to control an unstable summoning like this one, so they are intended to be airdropped into the enemy formation and then activated so that their indiscriminate rampage doesn't hurt friendly forces.2 True GoalEdit Despite all its capabilities and new summoning systems, these are all just conveniences to hide the Pandemonium's true purpose. Pandemonium is not just a Box meant to simplify the Summoning Ceremony. It is meant to destroy the established hierarchy of Materials…and create a new possibility. It can manifest new Materials that ignore the existing costs and sound ranges of the Third Summoning Ceremony. For example, even if you summon the same Material, the strength will be different between the Blood-Sign method and the Pandemonium method. This is because of somethign known as the factor of decay. Divine and Unexplored-classes summoned with the Blood-Sign method do not come with their full strength. The strength is determined by who has a higher cost. Even sound ranges lose all meaning once the difference in cost reaches 10. It comes down to the summoning method and the compatibility between the gods. Thus, if the power of the gods can be increased or decreased based on the summoning method, it should also be possible to create a great enough increase to overturn the existing hierarchy. A Divine-class would be able to defeat an Unexplored-class, or the White Queen at the very top could be dragged down from the throne of the strongest. The Blood-Sign method categorizes Materials with letters and uses that to assist in the summoning. The preexisting gods are managed via spelling and that overwrites them in a form that humans can perceive. So theoretically wouldn’t the same god’s cost and sound range change if they are represented with another word? For example, the difference between the Norse goddess Freyja and Freya. This has never been practically proven with the Blood-Sign method, but the theoretical possibility exists. To fulfill the Deltaston's family goal of dethroning the White Queen, the Pandemonium is built to summon the Wicked ‘Green’ Woman who Fills the World with Empty Treasure, one of the Three from the Unexplored-class, and increase her power so that she can defeat the White Queen. Since a single person using the Pandemonium method can only handle the Divine-class. Divvying up a single Material among all 353 vessels of the Pandemonium allows to stably summon an Unexplored-class.7 However, after being combined into one the souls of the vessels cannot be returned properly to their bodies after the summoning is over, leaving 353 souls in a single body, which takes the appearance and personality of one of the vessels Like other Repliglass weapons, Pilot Soldiers are partially or entirely modeled on insects and other animals. Regenerative medicine is used to create all-purpose silicon stem cells which can be rearranged to form any kind of muscle, bone, nerves, blood vessels, internal organs, or sensory organs. In the case of Pilot Soldiers, Repliglass is used to form an external armor to increase the soldier's capabilitis. Repliglass soldiers are the main players of modern warfare and they are a symbol of fear for the guerillas and terrorists being wiped out around the world,2 being a new division of the military beyond infantry or tanks. Pilot Soldiers wear pitch black external armor and extra limbs.1 Repliglass soldiers are physically superior to normal soldier thanks to their artificial muscles, being capable of crushing an armored vehicle or digging through concrete.3 Pilot Soldier TypesEdit * Water Strider: A Pilot Soldier with four legs that can move on the water's surface.14 * Bottlenose Dolphin: A Pilot Soldier capable of naval warfare that can remain underwater for long periods of time.14 * Unnamed Grasshopper Unit: An unnamed grasshopper model equipped with grasshoper-like legs allowing for long jumps up to 10 or twenty meters1 or kicks capable of crushing an armored vehicle. Pilot Soldiers using this model can wield weapons like a flashlight-equipped carbine.2 * Unnamed Spider Unit: An unnamed spider model that has a spider body added onto a human’s upper body and is capable of silently crawling on surfaces like walls.1 * Horseshoe Crab: A cutting-edge amphibious model with a giant hemisphere of armor on its back. Including the tail, it's about four meters long. Each unit has several weapons underneath that shell, like a gatling gun made for underwater use, a super-high temperature saber that reaches temperatures of five or six thousand degrees using a plasma jet (also made for underwater use), and amphibious guided weaponry. It has a detachable visor that combines infrared, ultraviolet, ultrasound visualization, and light amplification into a single grayscale image. According to Kyousuke Shiroyama, it looks like a modified version of the Quad Motors CE-30. The visor is detachable so that soldiers can switch between the naked eye and the mechanical sensors, as summoners and Materials do not appear on mechanical sensors when an Incense Grenade is in effect.5 * Snail: A model that wears a giant round backpack. Their legs are enveloped by a sticky material that allowed them to cling to walls and ceilings. The backpack contain high-pressure water sprayers that take in powder from the building materials (such as concrete or steel) worn down by the leg units and produce enough destructive power to instantly slice through twenty centimeters of steel from a distance of fifteen hundred meters.6 * Others: There are other unnamed models mentioned in passing in the story, such as two-meter praying mantis and pill bug units.3 * is the term used to refer to the locations where gods and other supernatural beings can manifest.1 PrinciplesEdit Natural Sacred Grounds are extremely rare. They can be unexplored regions like deep valleys or thick rain forests or they can be temples, sanctuaries, or cathedrals designed by human hands. They have to be more than someplace hidden from human eyes where people are forbidden to enter. They have to naturally fill people with a desire to stay out. Someone could easily peek inside one, but people will never even think to do so. They will decide they will be happier not knowing if the alternative is exploring a place like that. It is only in these places the gods will appear. Modern technology is thought by some to have robbed the gods of some of these Sacred Grounds, as anyone can use the Internet to easily search for satellite photos or freely explore 3D models of the pyramids. The truth is that if they are really one of the mystical locations spoken of in the summoning business, people will avoid digitalizing them or viewing that data, even if they have the technical capabilities. What really happened is that technological advances revealed just how few true sacred grounds there are in the first place. There are a fair number of partial Sacred Grounds, but in those, the "exit" gets clogged up and it turns into a haunted spot, causing ghosts and monsters like the Kuchisake-Onna to show up Summoning a MaterialEdit After the artificial sacred ground has been created, something like a hologram will appear between the two summoner-vessel pairs. This is the Rose (薔薇 Bara), which has its roots in a symbol of Western magic that used a rose emblem to conceal the secrets of summoning archangels. At first glance, the Rose looks like a die with colorful patterns on its 60-centimeter sides, but it's a gathering of 216 spheres of light that are as big as apples and as red as blood. These are the Petals (花弁 Hanabira). All of the Petals have a single letter of the alphabet carved into it in accordance with a certain set of rules. Even from a distance, a summoner can intuitively feel the “meaning” just from seeing the light of the Petal. The Petal's letter belongs to a category of sounds: low, middle, high, and lowest.2 The low sounds are b, c, d, f, g, h, and j. The middle sounds are k, l, m, n, p, q, and r. The high sounds are s, t, v, w, x, y, z. The lowest sounds are a, i, u, e, and o. After the Rose appears, three spheres of white light known as White Thorns (白棘 Hakukyouku) will appear near each summoner. The summoners will hit their White Thorns to try and hit the Petals and knock them into a Spot (スポット Supotto), fist-sized holes that will cause something to “fall” into it no matter what direction it contacted it from. 36 Spots will appear across the space isolated by the Incense Grenade once the Rose is hit by a White Thorn. By knocking Petals into Spots, the summoner carves the name of the Material they want to call in, making it possess the physical body of their vessel. Once the Material is temporarily fixed there, it can be used. One White Thorn is replenished after a ten-second period, and a maximum of seven can be held at any given time.2 * The First Summoning Ceremony involves "overwriting oneself", akin to controlling one's will to perform a particular task or to perform that task with greater efficiency. In techniques dating back to BCE, people would become an animal by covering themselves in the animal’s fur or play the role of nonexistent people using special makeup or masks. This does not apply only to mental activity. Athletes and military snipers have techniques to release their brain’s limiters with a war cry or by entering “the zone". * The Second Summoning Ceremony involves exciting one's mind into a state unexplainable by normal psychology in order to control phenomena beyond the realm of human knowledge. This allows people to call forth rain from the sky, summon demons or otherworldly beings from a grimoire, perform assassinations or even save the world. By using a pentagram in a circle, a lotus wand, or the rose cross sigil, modern Western magic cabals did a lot to develop this methodology during the 19th century and the start of the 20th. And during the Cold War, the parapsychology of the Stargate Project and the former Soviet Union’s secret research could also qualify at least partially. These are the convenient summoning techniques normal people think of. * The Third Summoning Ceremony, discovered in the year 1999, is said to surpass the capabilities of the second ceremony. This is the Blood-Sign ceremony used by modern summoners. Summoners can establish a contract with a vessel by making them ingest a drop of their blood in a special ceremony, so a summoner always has a certain “protective charm” on hand (a small blade, a pin, or even their own canine tooth) just in case.6 The single drop of blood uses magical power to explosively rearrange the vessel's entire body and establish their contract, binding them to the summoner.7 In order for a contract to be established, both summoner and vessel must fully consent to it. Thus, a contract does not work under duress, while unconscious, while hypnotized, or under the influence of other forms of suggestion. A new contract overwrites the previous contract and no thought is given to the other member of the old pair. There are many mysteries about this covenant system, so there is a possibility of unexpected side effects.8 A summoner can cancel their current contract with a vessel as long as they can see the vessel with the naked eye,9 unless their vessel is currently summoning a Material.10 Toy Dream Company is a privately owned company that supports cities that fall into economic collapse and revives them.1 These revived cities hand over their administrative authority to be reborn as a giant profitable amusement park filled with the dreams of children and the hopes of adults. Cities have been revived in all continents.2 This is all to follow Toy Dream’s ideology to build amusement parks around the world to spread smiles and vitality. While many appreciate the bright news these revived cities bring, some people have raised concerns over a foreign corporation taking control of regional governments. Some of the more extreme members of the opposition claim the cities are a source of money for the CIA and act as footholds for military activity as America continues to withdraw from its overseas bases While one cannot establish a contract with a vessel that's under the state of shock brought upon losing a summoning battle (it would be considered a type of suggestion and not fully consenting), a summoner who is in the same state can be ordered to break their contract with their vessel Summoning BattleEdit The two summoners are guarded by a protective circle made from the Material's power for the duration of the battle. With modern summoning ceremonies, the top priority while using a Material’s power is to prevent the summoned monster from interfering with the ceremony. The circle’s effects can be divided into two major categories: stopping all external elements and preventing the summoner from collapsing mid-ceremony due to internal elements such as lifespan or illness. (i.e. in the unlikely event that the protective circle was pierced from outside, the summoner would not die. It could happen the instant the circle was released, though.) As such, a battle between summoners comes down to the clash between the Materials they have summoned. They can swap out or strengthen their Materials, but they can not interfere any more than that and they can not directly kill the opposing summoner. During battle, the vessel and summoner can communicate their thoughts due to their contract.2 Each Material has a Silhouette (人郭 Hito Kuruwa) inside their body, which stores the vessel's mind. It changes size and is stored in different places depending on the specific Material. The Silhouette is the weak point of the Material, and the battle will end if it is crushed. When a Material is defeated, a shock on the level needed to kill a god will be carved into the hearts of the defeated pair, both the summoner and the vessel. The two will be conscious, but basically catatonic. They will slowly continue their meaningless actions, stare blankly ahead and slowly obey anyone who gestures simple instructions to them. This state lasts for over a day, and can't be overcome by empty ideas like “fighting spirit” or “hard work”. The basic structure of the human mind simply can't endure that kind of shock. However, if the summoner is fast they can cancel their contract with their vessel and save themselves from the shock.2 In a summoner battle using an Incense Grenade, the Artificial Sacred Ground will disappear on its own when either a conclusion is reached or ten minutes have passed. However, immediately after defeating the opposing summoner, the summoner can freely move along with the Artificial Sacred Ground for about ninety seconds. Modern summoning ceremonies are a technique to summon the gods using battles, but the “residual heat” remaining after a target is defeated can be used to borrow the enemy’s existence to run the system without it being bound to their thoughts. If a new enemy is taken in for a battle before the ninety seconds run out, a new battle will begin with the current Material intact. This is a major advantage, as the enemy will be forced to build up their Material from the weakest level, but the summoner and vessel making a chain will start with a much more powerful Material. If this Chain (チェイン Chein) lasts long enough, one can build up a Material much more complex and advanced than what can be summoned in only ten minutes. Of course, the damage taken will carry over as well, and losing the chain for even an instant means losing it all and having to start from scratch again. The vessel's fatigue is also increased by this method.2 Rules/FactsEdit Only the Blood-Sign can affect the White Thorns. The White Thorns, Petals, and Spots will pass through humans and Materials. Three are supplied at the beginning and a maximum of seven can be held. One is replenished from thin air about every ten seconds.13 White Thorns naturally vanish on their own when they stop moving after being hit, but if they are hit with a Blood-Sign again within the 3 seconds before they vanish, they can be reused.14 The cost of the Material is determined by the number of Petals placed inside Spots and its sound range is determined by the number of small, middle, and high sounds included. The lowest sounds do not influence the sound range.13 The White Thorns, Petals, and Spots are not affected by gravity. However, they are affected by their own sort of friction from the air.13 An Incense Grenade will have no effect unless it is used while viewing the target with the naked eye. Also, an Artificial Sacred Ground can be placed on walls and ceilings. Once the Incense Grenade detonates, the summoner and vessel are pulled toward the center of the Artificial Sacred Ground.13 The Petals knocked into the Spots can be freely rearranged to spell the names of the Material. Also, acquired petals can be cast aside without being used. Once a Material is summoned, the unused Petals are automatically discarded.15 When the number of Petals in the Artificial Sacred Ground grows low – specifically, when all seven of one of the low, middle, or high sound consonants is used up or when all of one of the vowels is used up – a new Rose appears.15 When using an Incense Grenade, summoners and vessels cannot be seen by mechanical cameras and sensors.16 With the exception of primitive optical devices like glasses and binoculars, anything beyond the naked eye is as useless as one’s eyes or ears.17 In battles between Materials, the strict numbers matter most. Even if the difference only amounts to a scratch or the slightest bit of exhaustion, if the exact same Material is summoned on both sides, the one summoned first will be at a disadvantage.18 The size of the Artificial Sacred Ground grows or shrinks based on the size of the Materials.19 The Artificial Sacred Ground is set up relative to the surface the Incense Grenade detonates on. This can be the floor, the ground, a wall, the ceiling, or a vehicle. In that case, artificial gravity is created to allow the summoners and vessels to stand on the wall or ceiling.20 If the Artificial Sacred Ground’s reference surface is destroyed, the next surface stepped on by the summoner who instigated the battle will become the new reference surface. Unlike when the Incense Grenade detonates, the enemy summoner and vessel will also obey the new artificial gravity. New Spots will be set, but the Petals will forcibly slide from the old Artificial Sacred Ground to the new one. A Petal that falls into a Spot without touching anyone’s White Thorn will vanish without counting.20 During battle, the summoner and vessel cannot leave the Artificial Sacred Ground, but any projectiles can. This is not limited to the Material’s attacks and applies to sniper rifle bullets as well.21 An Artificial Sacred Ground without an enemy is the same as a Chain state, so anyone can join it with no risk. But unlike a Chain state, the Artificial Sacred Ground does not move with the summoner.21 If multiple summoners use Incense Grenades simultaneously and their Artificial Sacred Grounds come into contact, the Artificial Sacred Grounds will fuse. Ownership of the Artificial Sacred Ground remains with the summoner who set up theirs first.22 The Petals and White Thorns are influenced by and bounce off of field objects. This is true even if those objects are in motion. But a thrown stone, a fired bullet, or anything else directly influenced by a human are an exception. Also, a human, an animal, or anything else with a soul does not count as a field object.23 Normally, people cannot move freely in and out of the Artificial Sacred Ground, but field objects have no such restriction. They can pass through the wall just like the losers after they pass out.23 When a summoner steps into an already established Artificial Sacred Ground (one where there are already two summoners and a battle is underway), they must use up three White Thorns as a penalty. The initial number is three, so they must survive unprotected for ten seconds before one is replenished and they can finally take part in the battl is a condition that can happen in vessels. Any frustrations, desires or pains held just before transforming into a Material will return with twice the intensity when they transform back. It is like having your forgotten sleepiness come rushing back once the effects of the energy drink wear off Modern summoners work in pairs with a vessel. They use the Blood Sign ceremony to summon Materials by carving out their names and having them possess their vessel.1 While vessels are usually other humans, this isn't a rule and animals can be used as vessels, like Aika's white liger.2 Unlike summoners, one needs inborn talent to be a vessel.3 An excellent vessel can be considered a type of genius. Those with the talent to be a vessel normally don't become a summoner. This is because vessels act as a contact point for Materials. If vessels tried to be a summoner themselves, the Material would hijack their body instead. The very fact that a pair is needed for the summoning ceremony proves that the vessel needs the support of a third party to maintain control.4 Because they are a contact point for Materials, vessels always wear symbols of bondage to prevent a vengeful or evil spirit that has not been summoned from taking control of their mental state from the outside.1 These symbols of bondage take many forms, from simple collars and handcuffs to inconspicuous things like a wristwatch. According to Kyousuke Shiroyama, the symbol can be anything, as long as it’s a symbol that solidifies the vessel's heart; something the vessel uses to restrain their actions or desires. Kyousuke has also mentioned some common symbols for girl vessels, such as a scale, their skirt’s zipper, etc... The symbol apparently needs to be modified and handed over to the vessel by the summoner to guarantee its effectiveness.5 Not even a vessel can fully control the Material that possesses them during a summoner battle. The Materials themselves have certain desires that drive them: the desire to devour flesh, to suck blood, to crush everything in sight, to smash everything after petrifying it, etc. The vessel cannot stop those desires. All they can do is try to control the aim by choosing who those desires will be directed at.1 A Material will prioritize counterattacking whoever attacks it. It does not matter whether or not that attack did any damage. It is possible for the vessel’s will to correct the targeting cursor, but the Material still takes an unnecessary action. is an international trade show who related to the summoning ceremony held by Government, Illegal and Freedom for 10 days in a large plan in Hokkaido. The trade show is intended to show off and make sales deals for technical research and new weapons of the Third Summoning Ceremony. The tens of thousands of people participating in the event are all summoners and vessels.2 The grassy field is filled with enormous structures. Military contractors, pharmaceutical companies, and countless other corporations and groups set up flashy outdoor booths as well as giant indoor displays that resemble circus tents. D.R.O.K. also includes the lodging facilities and infrastructure to support the thousands of staff and the guests who number ten times that , from hotels made by stacking several metal containers that have been decorated as a guest room to solid resort hotels2 The D.R.O.K. is basically a temporary city built for just a ten day event. All structures, from the booths and stages to lodging facilities are arranged in a ring with a diameter of ten kilometers. In the center of that ring there is the Pandemonium.3 D.R.O.K. is officially a joint project run by Government, Illegal, and Freedom. It lies one step away from reconciliation and is considered a necessary step toward a historical turning point that will end the age of fruitless conflict. However, it’s actually run by the Deltaston family, a member of the Round Table that has formed a gigantic border-crossing faction by sending skilled summoners to each of the three major powers. In other words, the joint project is simply the Deltaston family’s way of expanding their power. This is the reason for the event's name